


Holiday Presence

by 99_Girl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe- Board Game Shop, Bellarke, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Fluff, Holidays, SO MUCH FLUFF, holiday party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 17:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8762278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99_Girl/pseuds/99_Girl
Summary: Clarke, Wells, and Raven are celebrating their shop's first year of business with a "Critmas Cosplay Holiday Gala". Preparations are going smoothly until Clarke gets distracted by a new customer who keeps hanging around the shop.ORA modern AU where Bellamy orders a custom Christmas gift for his sister from Clarke and they end up over the moon for each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the mood for some sweet holiday cotton candy fluffiness. There's a tiny smidge of angst, but never fear, a barrel-full of sugar helps the medicine go down.
> 
> This kind of just came to me after a trip to my local game store. I've only proofed it a couple times, so let me know if there are any glaring errors.

Here’s the deal: Clarke’s got it bad.

There’s a guy that she’s just thirsty for. _Parched_. Like, tongue-swollen, lips-cracked, vision-blurred: in desperate need for him to administer IV Fluids, in which the V does not stand for “venous”.

When Raven first made that joke Clarke ignored her, but it’s been a few weeks and this crush has gotten way out of hand. She can’t keep ignoring how much she wants Bellamy Blake.

It started because of a plain old custom commission at the game store she owns with Wells and Raven. They sell all kinds of tabletop, pen-and-paper, card, strategy, and educational games.

Unlike other local shops, only _Mecha-Moon_ offers custom, high quality resin-, pewter-, precious gem-, or steel-craft miniatures, hand-painted to the customer’s exacting specifications.

The two young women had previously been selling their custom minis online, but when Wells said he wanted a brick-and-mortar store to sell board games and expand the competitive card game leagues he was already organizing from his own home, they thought it might be nice to have a place where they could have fun with their customers, instead of just making commissions and sending them off into the world.

A guy came in at closing on the night before Thanksgiving and asked to put in an order for an opal miniature that looks like his sister dressed as her Dungeons & Dragons character. He said his name is Bellamy Blake and filled out an order sheet, and that’s pretty much what Clarke remembers because she was so distracted by how sexy his smile was, and how he made her laugh, and that when he handed back the clipboard their fingers touched for a moment and she nearly immolated just from that one brush of skin.

Not wanting to make a complete fool of herself AND ruin their business’ reputation, Clarke asked Raven to finish his order and finalize any details that might require more brainpower than the ladyboner that’d ambushed her was allowing. Excusing herself, Clarke slunk into the stockroom to calm down.

After he’d left Raven gleefully announced that she’d put him on the list for the _Mecha-Moon Critmas Cosplay Gala_ planned for December 24th, and that she’d told him it was at Clarke’s request he be there. Apparently he wasn’t sure if he had plans with the aforementioned sister, but that he might insist that she and her boyfriend join him for the event.

That wasn’t the last time she saw Bellamy Blake before the party, though. No, that would be too kind of the Universe. Nah, it soon became abundantly clear that Bellamy had every intention of making sure his sister’s gift came out perfectly. That’s fair. That’s what Clarke aspires to. That’s also what fucks her in this situation, because no less than four times per week Bellamy Blake or, as Raven has taken to calling him “Hot Smart-Hero” (damn her and her weird loyalty to D20 Modern), appears at the door to her workroom with more pictures of his sister and her boyfriend’s sketches of her costume. Aside from the fact that Bellamy sits patiently with Clarke while she mocks up sketches, he’s so sweet and he speaks of his sister so fondly that Clarke can’t muster up any annoyance at him for obsessing over every detail. He also smells incredible and there’s that whole pheromone thing where she can almost feel him in the room with her.

Eventually, she just invites him to hang out in the workroom anytime he wants because she enjoys his stories. He talks about raising his sister and getting to know her boyfriend. He asks if he can sit nearer and watch her work. And when she mentions that she never got to study any of the languages she wanted to learn in school (she was so overwhelmed with AP and International Baccalaureate courses that she chose Hebrew because she already knew it from her Torah studies) Bellamy offers to teach her some Tagalog. It’s not long before they’re spending most every day together, talking openly about whatever the hell they want while the rest of the shop hums with activity just outside her door.

Four days ago, Raven reluctantly pointed out that they’d fallen behind on custom commissions, leaving Clarke wracked with guilt. She knows it’s not Bellamy’s fault, but he’s definitely slowing things down, what with his existence and how perfect he is and how much she wants his mouth on her mouth, so when he shows up that same afternoon bearing a silver tin of rugelach, which he learned to make just for her, it takes every ounce of willpower she possesses to send him away.

As he left Clarke wrapped Raven in a hug from behind and nestled her face in her friend’s shoulder. “He didn’t look that crushed, did he?” She almost felt like crying.

Raven turned her head to kiss Clarke’s temple. “Only a little. But he’s too sprung on you not to come back.” At the time, Clarke had a hard time believing it.

 

  
The main staging area for the party is in the store’s large community game room, where everyone will get to try out new games and take home a goody bag embroidered with the store logo-- a full moon with a raven silhouetted against it. Each bag also contains a commemorative gemstone D20, a Clarke-made _Timelines_ card with the year the store opened, and a super-high-quality enamel pin with chibi versions of Clarke, Raven, and Wells.

They’ve hired someone to do face painting and at the end of the night there will be a costume contest. Raven’s friend Roan, whom Raven somehow convinced to dress as Aragorn, will be showing off sword tricks he learned during his tours as a Marine.

As a gift to the three of them, their friends Monty and Jasper are doing a _Cocktail_ -style bar-tending show in one of the smaller gaming rooms for anyone old enough to drink.

A group of their regular customers showed up early to festoon the whole store in fluffy cotton snow, tinsel, and twinkling lights, too.

At first they’d worried that the $30 cover charge for the party would keep people away (to be fair, they had to cover food, their overhead, and the requisitions from inventory), but at least a hundred people have shown up. It’s perfect, and a suiting celebration to cap off _Mecha-Moon’_ s first year in business.

That does nothing to combat this cold, sinking feeling in Clarke’s stomach, which worsens each time the door chimes and someone other than Bellamy arrives at the party.

They’re an hour in, everyone is having an amazing time, she should be happy. Suddenly, her costume she’d worked so hard on, been so proud of (the Princess from her favorite game:  _Love Letter_ ) feels oppressive. She’d designed it with a corset, thinking if it weren’t too tight she’d be okay, but now panic sets in and everything looks bleak, feels like it's collapsing in on her. Most of all, Clarke has never been more pissed at herself for being this upset over something so silly. So, the guy she’d rapidly come to see as a fixture in her life hasn’t shown up to the party? So what? It’s not like she hasn’t had crushes before. This is her business, and tonight is a shining achievement and commemoration.

Thinking a few minutes of quiet will help, she makes her way slowly back to her workroom. It’s cool, dark, quiet. The single, transom window over the door allows enough fairylight in from the strings hung outside, and Clarke breathes slowly, allowing the gentle, flickering glow to guide the rhythm. The shelves are unusually sparse. Nearly every order has been collected, except one. Bellamy had paid extra for gift-wrapping, and Wells helped Clarke find beautiful frosted white foil paper, onto which Clarke had hand-painted small, blue butterflies. Right now, washed in swirling beads of light, it almost looks like the butterflies are moving.

A knock at the door snaps her out of her wallowing. “Come in!” she calls.

The door opens and a slender brunette peeks through the opening. “Hey, um, I’m Octavia. Ah, Octavia Blake, I should say. My brother says you have my Christmas gift.” The girl steps into the room fully and gestures at the light switch. “Mind if I turn on the light?”

Clarke is immediately struck by how silly she must look, sitting alone in a darkened room staring at box on a shelf. A laugh bubbles up in her chest. Clarke nods and Octavia flips on the overhead. Octavia’s Dawnblade costume is immediately recognizable as the one she’d sculpted onto the miniature. “Your costume is incredible,” Clarke says.

Grinning proudly, Octavia strikes a pose, resting an unbelievably realistic greatsword against her shoulder. “Thanks! My brother made it. He’s amazing, right?”

Involuntarily, Clarke groans. She can feel her face fall, but tries to hide the sadness by bustling over to grab the gift. After a calming breath, she turns and hands the box over. Octavia eyes her.

“Bell said that he hung out here a lot. With you.”

Clarke nods. It’s getting harder to swallow down the knot in her throat. “Uh, yeah. I was really behind on orders, though, so I had to send him away earlier in the week. I was hoping he’d be here tonight, though...” voice small, she trails off.

Octavia gently tilts the box in different directions, smiling at the butterflies. “This paper is lovely. Where did you find it?”

Still unable to meet the girl’s eyes, Clarke busies herself with some papers on her workbench. Over her shoulder, casually as she can, “I, um, painted it. Bellamy mentioned your love of butterflies and I wanted to make his gift for you extra-special.” A brackish chuckle fumbles out of her and she finally turns to face Octavia. “Honestly, he spent so much time here making sure it would be exactly perfect, I figured he secretly didn’t have that much faith in me.”

A strange smile alights Octavia’s lips. She looks down at the gift again. “Okay, I need to make a quick call. And I need a drink. You want a drink? I’m bringing you a drink. Then I’m going to open this gift, right here in front of you, because I know I’m going to love it and I want to give you a hug after I see it. Sound good?”

Clarke can’t help but giggle. Nodding, “Yeah, that does sound good.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

She’s still sad, especially because Octavia’s mannerisms remind her so much of Bellamy, but it’s not such a heavy feeling right now.

Ten minutes pass before Octavia bounds back into the room, trailed by a large guy Clarke assumes must be the boyfriend she’d heard so much about.

“Clarke, this is Lincoln. Lincoln, Clarke.” Octavia shoves a drink into Clarke’s hand and hops up onto Raven’s stool. Lincoln pulls up the chair from Wells’ desk. It’s surprising how these two people can fit in so naturally that it feels like they’ve always been there. It was the same with Bellamy, honestly.

A wild, nervous energy scuttles over Clarke’s ribs as Octavia sets her drink on a shelf and carefully peels back the wrapping paper, trying not to tear it anywhere. “I’m keeping this paper forever,” she announces. It’s a nice thing to hear.

Once the box is unwrapped, Octavia hands the paper to Lincoln, who reverently lays it over his lap, appraising its beauty with a warm smile. A squeal draws Clarke’s attention back to the giftee. Octavia cradles her mini in both hands, close to her face, seeking out each detail. “This is _amazing_ , Clarke! Honestly! I can’t believe how beautiful it is. Thank you!” She practically leaps from her stool and embraces Clarke with enough force that they both nearly topple over. Thankfully Lincoln is quick enough to catch them mid-wobble. When she pulls back there are tears in Octavia’s eyes.

Another knock at the door. It’s Bellamy.

There’s a slight flush at the apples of his cheeks, but it’s cold. That doesn’t mean anything, Clarke reminds herself. Of course, the sheepish smile is a little harder to parse. His sister runs to him, plants a huge kiss on his cheek, then grabs Lincoln by the hand and pointedly vacates the room. To punctuate their exit, Octavia turns to give Bellamy an encouraging push towards Clarke before closing the door. Now it’s just Clarke and Bellamy. In the workroom. She feels like there’s a _Clue_ joke in there, somewhere.

“Hey,” she whispers.

“Hey.” Tentatively, Bellamy takes a step forward. Clarke doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so she fiddles with the piping on her bodice. He smiles. “You look gorgeous.”

It’s sweet, but also enough to bring her properly into the moment. “Why are you so late?” Waving her hand, she gestures to his jeans and tee shirt. “And why aren’t you in costume?”

His gaze is level and sad. “I wasn’t going to come,” he says, simply.

“Well, why the hell not?” She sounds angrier than she is. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Him not planning to show up hurts. “Did you have something else you had to do? You promised you’d be here! You had me looking forward to spending tonight with you here!”

Ashamed, he looks away. “I know. I’m sorry. I was being stupid.”

Clarke walks up to him and ducks her head to the side to catch his eye. “What do you mean?”

Resigned, he sighs. It’s heavy and weary and now he blushes even more. “It’s a combination of stuff, really. First of all,” he makes eye contact again,” I’m so sorry that I gave you to impression that I didn’t believe in your artistic abilities. When Octavia called me earlier, it was to ream me out for making you think that, and for clearly hurting you because you, quote, “looked like someone had kicked your puppy”. She was very clear on the fact that I was no better than an emotionally-inept, metaphorical-puppy-kicker if I didn’t get my ass here tonight to apologize. And she’s absolutely right, Clarke. I hired you to make this gift _because_ of how talented you are. I was embarrassed to admit it, but this is the first year I’ve had a job good enough that I could afford to buy O an honest-to-god special gift to make up for all the crappy Christmases we had growing up. And, yeah, the first few times I came to bring more pictures, I was just being extra and intense and paranoid, but it took very little time of me talking to you for me to know that you’ll do anything in your power to make people smile, and that you pour so much love into everything you do.

So I kept coming back. And before long you were the best part of my day and I was developing feelings for you crazily fast and that terrified me, so, “ he moves to touch her cheek, but falters and drops his hand, “when you said you were too busy, I not only felt guilty for keeping you from your work, but also foolish because it really sucks being apart from you, and you couldn’t be feeling the same. I worried you'd chalk it down to Cuffing season and not that I'm falling for you helplessly. It would be ridiculous to think so, right?”

The happy, surprised sound he makes as Clarke lifts onto her toes to kiss him is probably the best thing she’s ever heard. His arms close around her waist and pull her close. She lets herself melt and blend into him, enjoying the feel of her fingers woven through his hair and his mouth exploring the curve of her throat.

Against her skin, he murmurs, “We should go out to the party, right? I have a James Potter costume in the car.”

She hums affirmatively, then immediately contradicts herself by reaching over and locking the door. “In a few.”

**Author's Note:**

> What'd you think? I have some WIPs going, and I'm still working on them, but I wanted to write something relaxed and uncomplicated. 
> 
> Also, I'm a nerd. You've probably ascertained that by now. Feel free to nerd out with me about board games, Bellarke, videogames, or science over at loft-meeting.tumblr.com


End file.
